we knew about these bosses for a long time and we want to kill them before we even played WoW. Bosses like Illidan, C'thun, Lich King, Deathwing, Nefarion, etc.

I would like to know what you played or read that gave you any lore about C'thun or Nefarian before WoW came out.

Neither of these guys were mentioned in any of the material I read, and the only raid boss in vanilla outside of Naxxramas that was mentioned anywhere was Ragnaros, but that was only in the RPG books (Lands of Conflict, released July 2004) and I have a pretty good feeling most people who bitch about lore never read those (much less read them as they were coming out, before WoW).

Just another misguided lore thread who thinks all lore ended with Warcraft 3.

I mourn the loss of a man of true vision and talent. You were my idol, Mr. Giger.
You gave faces to my dreams and nightmares and sparked my imagination throughout my entire life. You will be missed.Hans Rudolf Giger
2/5/1940 - 5/12/2014

I started raiding early in BC and I can tell you that I didn't care about lore then or now.

This pretty much. Noone in the guilds I raided with back in TBC/WoTLK cared about lore, except for that one lore geek every guild seems to have. The only boss I felt even remotely involved with was the Lich King, probably because that guy was everywhere the entire expansion.

I've really felt that some of the quality of raid bosses in MoP are less because of this. I know that there is lore for bosses, but it isn't the same as LK or KJ. MSV for example. Every single boss is just made up there and some of the story is shown with Cho being with you. Also, bosses 4-7 in ToT. Random beast bosses underneath the citadel that serve no purpose story wise, it's just a boss.

You're saying Kil'jaeden was amazing, and then say the quality of the bosses in MoP are less. Then you mention the bosses in MSV and bosses 4-7 in ToT. Let's bring up bosses from the same expansion as Kil'jaeden.

SSC: Hydross, The Lurker Below, Karathress and Morogrim. I don't remember reading much about these, these are similar to bosses 4-7 in ToT. (Leotheras got a small mention in a few quests, about a demon hunter going insane when going through Illidan's training)
TK: Loot Void Reaver and High Astromancer Solarian. What's a fel reaver just randomly doing inside Tempest Keep? No one really knows. Solarian seems to be just a high ranked person in Kael's army, but wasn't really mentioned much (if at all)
BT: Naj'entus, Supremus, Gurtogg, Mother Shahraz and the Illidari Council. Naj'entus was just another high ranking Naga, Supremus was a unique-ish infernal, Gurtogg was an orc on fel-steroids, Mother Shahraz didn't have much of a story and neither did the Illidari Council (other than being high ranked blood elves in service of Illidan) (and I'm not entirely sure about the Reliquary of Souls)
SWP: Brutallus and the Eredar Twins. Neither of those had any mention before their raids were released (and Madrigosa/Felmyst had little mention before that aswell)

Sure, these raids had Vashj, Al'ar, Kael'thas, Akama, Teron Gorefied, Illidan, Kalecgos, M'uru and Kil'jaeden, but it also had a lot of bosses that are, like you said:

Random (beast) bosses (underneath the citadel) that serve no purpose story wise, it's just a boss.

The lore of the raids in MoP is very clearly explained if you actually read the quests. What I'm getting out of this post is "When I was new to WoW, I read the quest text, and it explained things to me. Now, I ignore quest text, and I don't know what's going on".

I would like to know what you played or read that gave you any lore about C'thun or Nefarian before WoW came out.

Neither of these guys were mentioned in any of the material I read, and the only raid boss in vanilla outside of Naxxramas that was mentioned anywhere was Ragnaros, but that was only in the RPG books (Lands of Conflict, released July 2004) and I have a pretty good feeling most people who bitch about lore never read those (much less read them as they were coming out, before WoW).

Just another misguided lore thread who thinks all lore ended with Warcraft 3.

i don't know if it counts, but while i never learn about ragnaros, nefarian, c thun prior to wow (i did play both War3), i did hear a lot about those bosses while playing from the community (forums, chat, even ventrillo). I heard many story about those legendary bosses, month, even a year before i get to face them. Obviously, it's not from "in game" but it did up the hype for me, when i finally got to face those boss, especially the legendary cthun, the guild killer.

I had no clue about Warcraft lore to be honest. Ok..I knew Arthas as the Lich King from WC3 - but Ragnaros was like..oooo-kay...who he? Same goes for Lady Vash...Gruul...Melchezaar, Yogg Saron, Anub Arak, Ragnaros (him again), Chogall, Al'Akir, Onyxia....no..can't say I took any of them personally.

Ragnaros was explained on the Alliance side quests, but then further in Blackrock Depths.
Vashj was WC 3 related
Gruul was from WC2
Melchezaar not much lore
Yogg Saron was explained through questing
Anub'arak was WC3
Ragnaros was pretty clear in Cataclysm
Cho'gall was from WC2, books, pre-Cata event, and multiple quests in revamped and post 85 questing
Al'Akir wasn't explained much, infer from lore and Ragnaros related stuff
Onyxia was Alliance focused story-wise.

Same with MoP. The raids, everything regarding why we're doing what we're doing, is well detailed if players actually read quest text and did all the zones.

Spellweaver detailed it pretty well, though. Main bosses have story. Their lackies are just raid bosses to fill the raid for the most part. It would be nice if more raid bosses had story build up, but that takes a lot of time, I suppose.

Last edited by Faroth; 2013-04-30 at 03:34 PM.

"There is good and evil in this world; we must find the black and white in the gray."

You played Wc3 and you didn't know who Lady Vash and Anub'arak are?
You just meant Wc3:RoC I think.

Hehe...note I said I know them from WC3 not from playing WC3. I pretty much only watched the cinematics. Warcraft n00b, that is me before WoW.

..and still...from levelling 1-60, doing my bits in Searing Gorge and Burning steppes....I was still pretty much puzzled how we got into Molten Core. I dinged 60 in EPL and found out that there is a thing called "raids" by accident. Next thing guildies tell me is about the MC attunement and to this day I wonder where I should have gotten a clue about it back then in 2005....

...and it wasn't even as if another part of the story naturally was leading me to BWL. But maybe there was just too much going on...I feel the levelling progression was pointing me towards Strat and Scholo at 60. Blackrock was over. Or so I thought...

Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment

... there are lots of different types of players, with different amounts of time to play, and different tastes for the content and difficulty and time commitment they want to give to any of those pieces of content. The person that plays for an hour or so a few times a week is playing the same game as the person that plays five hours every night.....

Hey guys, I'm new here and this is my first post. I've been playing WoW for seven years and I must say, the most fun part of the raids is the end bosses, back then we took raids personally, we knew about these bosses for a long time and we want to kill them before we even played WoW. Bosses like Illidan, C'thun, Lich King, Deathwing, Nefarion, etc. However, in this expansion I have no idea who am I fighting against. I think this is a step down, but that's only my opinion, I think blizzard should do war of the ancients raid, where all the old bosses become available like Gul'dan and Kil'Jaeden. What do you guys think.

Nefarian and C'thun were added to Warcraft lore with World of Warcraft.

If anything Mists of Pandaria most closely resembles Classic WoW raiding, as in both we're mostly fighting new enemies who we have not really met before, but with a lot more story build-up for those enemies.

Admittedly though I'd love to be able to go into old raids and fight bosses attuned to my level who dropped level-appropriate gear. Would be much fun, I'd think.

Just another misguided lore thread who thinks all lore ended with Warcraft 3.

This. Everybody hates on MoP for not feeling like WoW. So many of them are people who played WC3, and thus think that any and all lore should stem back to what was already established. It was risky for blizz to completely make Pandaria with little lore basis but most of the big bads had more lore buildup than most other villains!

Really don't get this. Outside of Kel'Thuzad, none of the raid bosses in the original vanilla game appeared in past RTS games. Back then they had the same amount of "lore" behind them as Lei Shen or the Sha do right now. Actually I would say the Sha/Y'shaarj have way more lore behind them then most of the other Old Gods by this point.

I, on the opposite, think that they should really start implementing new characters and antagonists in the lore. There's a point where you run out of bad guys, and then what. Rehashing old stuff again and again and again and again is just beyond ridiculous. Any good story needs a proper ending, and that's why it was a great thing that they killed of Arthas. His end was such a fitting and great conclusion to his tragic story. Now it's a legend, it will always remain epic and monumental.

It came to a point where you have to choices: kill him off and conclude the thing, or let him become a ridiculous parody. Blizzard made the right choice. There's nothing worse than having this cool antagonist and then allowing him to become Dr. Claw. I'll get you next time, Gadget - next tiiiime!! *screen fades to black*

If people are really interested in the lore, they'll pay attention to it while questing, they'll read stuff up, be it old characters or new ones.